


A Fuse So Thoroughly Shot

by Rrrowr



Series: Fuseverse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robot, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Translation Available, Virtual Reality, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrrowr/pseuds/Rrrowr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future!AU. Kurt has spent the last six months as a beta tester for the virtual reality video game, Dalton. His boss, Wes, is a psychiatrist and the main programmer for the video game as well as its characters, the foremost of which is a boy called Blaine. What starts off as a simple job, however, becomes more complex as Kurt becomes invested in Blaine's character and forgets, sometimes, that nothing he sees in Dalton is real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fuse So Thoroughly Shot

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [A Fuse So Thoroughly Shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019080) by [yolo_jackie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yolo_jackie/pseuds/yolo_jackie)



> AN: Thanks to Shauna, Elaine, and Jizzy for all the help you gave me.

_Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest._  
**\-- Isaac Asimov**

_The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame._  
He might get burned, but he's in the game.  
And once he's in, he can't go back,  
He'll beat his wings 'til he burns them black...   
**\-- "The Moth" by Aimee Mann [[download](http://www.mediafire.com/?9y2dido9q27yiue)]**

*

Working as a beta tester for video games hadn't really been what Kurt had in mind for his future. He'd rather have been a fashion designer of some kind, but between signing up as a paid volunteer with the recruiters that had dropped by his college campus and the odd leg-up that his skill with languages gave him, becoming a beta tester was actually okay. Failing to follow his dreams into fashion design was just one more thing to add to the list of regrets he'd built up over the course of his short life. That Kurt was actually no good at all at video games was something that Wes, the researcher behind the game he was currently poking at, considered a plus.

"I don't like testing with the usual crowd," Wes had explained with crisp bluntness on their first day working together. "For one thing, they want explosions and girls in skimpy outfits and this isn't about first person shooters, aliens, or puzzles. I'm a _psychiatrist_ and I have bigger concerns than the next big sell."

Wes was, aside from having a distinctly low awareness for personal space, a very pleasant boss and looked only twenty of his thirty long years, which probably had to do just as much with his Asian genes as it did with his tendency to only achieve three full hours of sunlight each day. He regarded Kurt's relatively minimal experience with video games as something valuable, which wasn't something that often happened. Usually, Kurt was brought in as a control -- someone who wasn't a habitual gamer to balance out the people that lived and breathed cheat codes and battle strategies. Kurt had to deal with dying a whole lot while others mocked him for his poor gaming skills, but with Wes, Kurt had what was probably the easiest job description ever: _lie back and tell me how real the world you're seeing feels._

Virtual reality -- it wasn't just a dream anymore or it wouldn't be if Wes and his team of researchers got the program to work correctly. In theory, the game would function like any other -- with tasks to be completed and connections to be made with non-player characters in order to advance to other levels -- but the technology that allowed for the complete submersion of a conscious mind into an established world was still in development. As it stood, the device that Kurt got to experiment with was still simple: monitors that would follow his brain patterns, a neural interface and visor to give feedback from the program, and a very comfortable chair in which Kurt reclined for a few hours every day.

"Are you ready?" Wes asked, leaning over Kurt as he brought the visor down a few clicks.

"I always am," Kurt replied and pulled the visor down the rest of the way so that his vision was completely obscured by inky blackness.

For a little bit -- while Kurt listened to Wes stepping toward the computer console and plugging Kurt into the system -- there was just quiet. It was Kurt's moment of silence before the plunge -- the time he took to watch numbers and letters begin cycling in front of his eyes and to get accustomed once more to the sticky cling of monitors across his forehead along with the steady, buzzing pressure of the neural interface attached to his temple.

"Good morning, Blaine," said Wes, off to the side. "You have a visitor."

As it always did whenever Wes prepared the Dalton Program for player interaction, the code Kurt was looking at shifted. He couldn't describe how he could tell, except that there was a slight line that swept across the visor's screen as the symbols changed. Wes had once explained that it was normal -- that certain parts of the program, otherwise dormant, would start up so that Kurt could be accepted as an additional input -- but Kurt had begun to think of it as the Dalton Program "waking up."

"Ready, Kurt?" called Wes from his console. He didn't wait for an answer. "Diving in three... two... one--"

A beat.

The tap of Wes' fingers against the enter key.

The hard tug at the back of Kurt's brain as if there were a vacuum right behind his skull -- so hard that Kurt had to squeeze his eyes shut every time -- and then, just as suddenly, nothing.

Kurt opened his eyes.

*

The Dalton Program was straightforward. It was comprised of a school -- a boys-only boarding school with a fairly intuitive game play and lots of non-player characters with which to interact. Going from reality to the game was still a bit jarring for Kurt, though it had less to do with the completely different environment he found himself in and more to do with his avatar being about eight years younger than his normal body.

Kurt took a few moments to reacquaint himself with Dalton. Wes' design for the school was beautiful, to say the least -- hard wood floors and lower panelling, renaissance-themed wallpaper for the rest, tall windows to the outside and mirrors on the inner walls to create the illusion of greater space, and a great winding staircase that led down into the play-scape. He rested his hand on the banister as he went downstairs and soaked in the bizarre, dream-like warmth that the school's environment offered.

He'd told Wes a million times about how Dalton felt more like a fantasy than something real, but every time, Wes had just nodded, replying: "If we make it feel too real, no one will play. It's meant to feel like a dream, one that the player gets to live and carry out. It's not the kind of game where an improved sense of reality earns a greater response. Dalton is _different_."

Kurt couldn't help but agree as he was greeted by a warm smile at the bottom of the stairs.

Dalton was different -- because Dalton had _Blaine._

At his most basic, Blaine could be considered the foundation for the Dalton Program -- the source code from which every detail of their environment stemmed. To Kurt, though, Blaine was so much more than that. It was probably not what Wes had intended when he'd first selected Kurt as his beta tester, but all he'd been instructed to do was test out how well the program withstood inspection. Part of that environment, Kurt reasoned, included Blaine.

Blaine was every inch the kind of leading character that Kurt had come to expect from video games. He was handsome, charming, and funny. Talking to him was easy because he was so absolutely open to conversation, giving suggestions that made advancing through the so-called levels a breeze and always backing up Kurt's decisions at the same time that he was almost an adversary to overcome in order to open up the game play to a greater volume of songs.

Kurt remembered what it had been like to first meet Blaine, when he'd still been a skeleton of a program -- shallow and bare and a series of facts. Blaine had greeted Kurt at the bottom of the stairs almost as if finding a player to interact with was a surprise and taken him to the starting level of the game without prompting -- through a glitching hallway, no less, though Kurt had been the only one to realize that the slower time flow and the lack of NPCs was a problem. To see Blaine now with those memories in mind, the expansion of his programming was incredible. He had such depth now. Over these last few months, he'd become a character who was worth emotional investment and someone whose supportive nature through each of the levels had progressively become less a guarantee and more a necessity.

Blaine led Kurt down the last few steps on the stair by clasping both his hands, smiling with a warmth that sent a glow into his cheeks. "It's good to see you again, Kurt. It's been a while," he said, knowing as he always did the amount of time that had passed between their last save point and the present. "Did you enjoy visiting your friends in Lima, Ohio?"

This wasn't something that Kurt was ever going to tell Wes about -- though it was possible that Wes knew already, being able to monitor the program while it was in session. It was Kurt's little secret that he cared less about advancing through the levels and more about the characters themselves. It was maybe because it was easy to stop Blaine in the middle of his programmed rambles and just stand there with his hands held gently by Blaine's fingers, marveling at how utterly real he seemed sometimes once he'd deviated from the standard game play.

Blaine's head crooked to the side. "What's wrong?"

Kurt changed the way they were holding hands, so that he could grip Blaine's fingers and rub his thumb over Blaine's knuckles. It felt like real flesh and bone to the touch -- not at all unlike how his own skin felt, or even how the skin grafts from Wes' other research project felt when prodded. If Kurt squinted hard enough or pushed down with the pressure required to _hurt_ , he would be able to see the slight ripple of the source code underneath Blaine's skin, like blood in the vein. No matter how real Blaine seemed sometimes, Kurt had to remember that he was just a program -- nothing more.

"I'm fine," Kurt finally said. When he looked up from Blaine's hands, Kurt saw only curiosity in the impossible amber of his eyes. "I was just thinking of a story to tell you."

As Blaine's entire structure seemed to brighten at the prospect of learning, Kurt tried to find the little things he'd noticed the last time he was in Dalton -- the things that had made the program feel a little less real -- but they were gone. During Kurt's previous visit, Blaine's eyes hadn't dilated properly in the changing light and there had been a slight stall in his reactions. Wes had apparently ironed out those tiny details until Blaine's programming ran smooth as silk. Of course, as the direct benefactor of these updates, Blaine had no idea, though he expressed from time-to-time a vague appreciation of how meeting Kurt had changed him for the better.

"Tell me your story," urged Blaine. "I want to know everything about you."

This too, Kurt would keep from Wes -- that he and Blaine would settle on the leather couches in the senior commons and talk. Kurt could talk about anything he liked here without fear of judgement. Blaine had no expectations whatsoever and could summon up just enough sympathy in his expression that Kurt didn't feel like he wanted to turn away. That Blaine was ultimately a collection of numbers and symbols made things so easy for Kurt. No matter how real he felt, no matter how honestly he seemed to lean into Kurt's touch, no matter how often Kurt could turn and find Blaine watching him with an earnest expression -- when it came down to it, that Kurt could tell himself that nothing about Blaine was real was the only thing that allowed him to open up.

"Have I told you about my mother yet?" Kurt asked, though he knew perfectly well that he hadn't.

"Not at all," Blaine said. "I would remember if you had."

"Liar." Kurt laughed a little, eyes wrinkling at the corners as he thoughtlessly reached out to touch the back of the hand that was resting on Blaine's knee. "You couldn't possibly remember _everything_ , Blaine. You're just a--" Kurt's voice strangled in his throat and Blaine was tilting his head in that helplessly curious way of his again, though there was something around his eyes that seemed sad. It was with some effort that Kurt forced himself to smile again and this time, he cupped Blaine's cheek, taking a moment to appreciate the warmth of his skin before speaking with conviction. "You're just so amazing, Blaine."

Blaine ducked his head, definitely blushing, and when he looked back up, his eyes were bright with affection. "Tell me about your mother, Kurt. I'll remember every detail. I promise."

*

Coming back to reality after spending what seemed like hours and hours in Dalton always left Kurt feeling cold. It was a legitimate chill -- goosebumps, shivers and everything -- but he had to wait until Wes had pulled up the visor and taken away the neural interface and monitors before he could give into it. He didn't know why it happened. He could only suppose that, after soaking in the calming warmth of Dalton's welcoming environment, his mind had a little difficulty adjusting the harsh truth.

Sitting up and rubbing at his arms, Kurt said, "Should really do something about the after effects of the game. It wouldn't be a very popular game if the players always got hypothermia after they log out."

Wes plugged the neural interface into an adapter to his console and squinted at the coding that scrolled across the screen. "You're the only one that gets that. Haven't figured out why yet." He looked at Kurt over his monitors. "Unless you have some ideas?"

"None at all," Kurt lied and pushed himself to his feet.

Wes was going through the code from the neural interface more slowly -- reading, apparently, though Kurt didn't know what kind of information he got out of it. "How was Dalton today?" Wes asked.

Kurt scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Better," he said. "The glitches from last time were gone. You did good work."

"And no other glitches?" Wes gave him a shrewd look. "Did you even do any game play at all, Kurt?"

"I made progress with my Social Links." That was close enough to the truth, Kurt figured. He scrubbed more slowly at his arms as he warmed up and his body shuddered boldly one last time as it adjusted to the cooler temperatures of reality. "Wes? Does the game remember everything I tell it?"

"Should," answered Wes, absently. "Just like any other game, I designed it to have automatic save points so that we wouldn't have to worry about reloading the game from scratch every time you came in. Dalton is, as it was designed to be, a place of education. You and I aren't the only ones that are learning as we go." He winked at Kurt with a bit of a smile. "Why? Did Blaine's vast and unfathomably good memory disarm you?"

"He does seem to know every single song on the face of the planet," Kurt admitted, "but no. It was nothing like that. It was just something he said."

"Huh." Wes scratched at his cheek and wrote down a few things on a notepad. "Tell me about Blaine."

Kurt tilted his head back as he considered his answers. The questions Wes was asking were the same after every session, but putting his observations into words was difficult, especially because he had to be objective about them. How could he put Blaine into plain description when the way he -- and all of Dalton -- made Kurt feel like he was sixteen again, young and full of so much promise, without all of these regrets weighing him down?

"Blaine was good." Kurt flapped his hands around, grasping for words from the air. "I mean, he was less talkative than usual and more expressive." He rolled his shoulders. "It wasn't bad necessarily."

"But...?" Wes prompted when Kurt trailed off. He only looked up from his notes when Kurt couldn't bring himself to continue speaking. "Don't start holding out on me now. I think we're really close to having the interface just right. Soon we'll be able to apply the coding to more than just systems like this."

Kurt raised a brow. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"

The grin Wes sent him was all teeth -- very much like a shark's in the excited, feral attitude that lay behind it. "That would be telling," he teased. "But let's just say that those skin grafts that you already know about aren't just for burn victims. I'd be an idiot to create something with such limited possibilities."

Pulling an exaggerated pout, Kurt slumped into a char near Wes' desk. "I promise I won't tell," he wheedled.

Wes always had the most interesting ideas. His flair for genius meant that he was able to take Kurt's lusterless responses and use them when he updated the game into something that was beautifully, subtly greater than before. Being a part of his work was fantastic fun and Kurt was honored, but when Kurt pressed for more information -- even on something he was participating in, like the Dalton Program -- Wes kept his lips sealed. He even kept his notes from Kurt's sight when he was near and had, just now, tucked his clipboard full of papers against his chest so that Kurt couldn't read them from where he was sitting.

"Nice try," Wes said, smirking smugly as he spun his chair around to face Kurt properly. "You're changing the subject, Kurt. Back on topic." He tapped his clipboard with his mechanical pencil. "Blaine was less talkative but more expressive. Last week you said that you liked that he listened so well, but that you felt like he was limited in his responsiveness. Has that changed?"

"It's not that," Kurt said. "Blaine was perfect."

That was, he supposed, the biggest problem he could come up with. Blaine had responded with the utmost sincerity to the story of Kurt's mother -- to her early death, to the difficulties Kurt and his father had faced in moving past the tragedy of it all -- and had made all the right moves of comfort and reassurance. After Kurt'd finished speaking, Blaine had even gone so far as to smile sweetly and softly and _thank him_ for telling the story at all, like it was a gift worth treasuring, like any part of Kurt's history was something Blaine wished to know. Then, because the memories on their own had been enough to leave Kurt shaky, Blaine had taken him to get coffee from the cafeteria. Even though it had tasted like absolutely nothing because the Dalton Program didn't know what coffee tasted like yet, it had been warm -- warm like Blaine's hands, warm like Blaine's smile -- and Kurt had accepted it gratefully before saying the most unfortunate words ever to slip past his lips: " _How are you real?_ "

Kurt's fingers fidgeted around the ends of his chair's armrests as he considered how to best explain what he still needed from the Dalton Program. "Do you remember the Matrix trilogy movies?"

"Oh, for god's sake," Wes said, tossing his clipboard back on his desk, face down. "If you're not going to answer me seriously--"

"I swear I have a point," Kurt said, holding up his hands placatingly. "It's like this. You remember how, when the Architect was explaining how they'd built the Matrix, the robots--"

"Computers," Wes said.

"Whatever." Kurt waved him off. "The computers had trouble getting the fake world accepted by the human mind because it didn't have enough flaws in it. Things were too peaceful and people were too nice. Mankind could only accept it for so long before their subconscious got suspicious and the Matrix was rejected altogether."

Both of Wes' brows climbed upward as he considered Kurt's words. "So what you're saying is that Blaine needs more flaws."

"Well..." Kurt floundered for examples. "Take the Final Fantasy games. They're popular -- not just because of the game play but also because their characters are engaging and sympathetic. It starts off kind of simple, you know, with the characters being cold or distant, but as you play the game, you pick up more about what makes them really great characters. It's just like when you make friends with new people. You can't know everything at once or else it wouldn't be interesting."

Wes sat back, mouth pursing. "I thought you found Blaine to be plenty interesting as he is."

"He's interesting for myself," Kurt said, picking at the lint on his knee and flicking it away. "He's so curious and such a great listener, but sometimes I wonder what kind of back story you have for him in your head. What kind of history have you given him that makes him so sympathetic and so eager to help?" Kurt bit his lip, hesitating. "Have you thought of one at all?"

Thankfully, Wes nodded. "He has one." He tuned away from Kurt then, swiping a hand across his face, and when he spoke again, his voice was rougher. "I hadn't thought of making it more apparent, but that's a good idea." He cleared his throat as he turned over his clipboard and scribbled out a note. "I'll get it ready for you to look at by next week. Is that okay?"

"Fine with me," Kurt said. "Is that it then? Done for the day?"

"Yes, that'll be everything," Wes said shortly.

Brows furrowing, Kurt stood and gathered his jacket and his bag by the door to the lab. Wes did not look up from his notes, seeming to be uncharacteristically quiet suddenly. Kurt hesitated to leave. Instead, he moved back toward Wes' desk and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." Wes spoke lightly, distracted, and Kurt hovered uncertainly nearby, taking in the stiffness of Wes' shoulders with a concerned eye. Sensing that Kurt was still lurking, Wes looked up with a small smile. "I'm fine," he insisted.

Kurt pressed his fingertips against the corner of the desk. "Are you sure?"

Wes' smile broadened infinitesimally. "Perfectly," he said. He shooed Kurt toward the door. "Now, go home or to school or whatever it is you do when you're not here. Dr. Berry's due any moment now and I have work to do."

Kurt left but reluctantly so, clutching hard at the strap of his backpack as he retreated backwards from Wes' desk. Even though Wes had made sure to play it off as lightly as possible, he was absolutely certain that he'd tripped over a sensitive topic somewhere in that conversation. It was only a guess -- albeit a logical one -- but Kurt thought it might have something to do with whatever history had been given to Blaine's character. For a fleeting moment, Kurt wanting nothing more than to head back into the lab and give Wes the consolation that he didn't seem to want. It was only propriety that kept him from doing so. If Wes didn't want to talk about it -- let alone accept the slightest sympathy -- then Kurt wouldn't belittle his decision by bringing it up. He would come back next week, do his job, report, and leave again, and hopefully, that would be the end of it.

*

The next week, Wes looked a bit more haggard, but greeted Kurt with twice his usual exuberance as if he wanted to make up for it. He chatted while he set up Kurt into the game system, talking a mile a minute as he pressed the sticky electrodes to Kurt's forehead. "His character is completely unlocked now," he was saying. "I don't know how that'll change your interaction with him, but he could be very different from before, Kurt. I don't want you to be surprised if he turns out to be less than perfect -- if he's withdrawn or angry or a complete idiot." Kurt grimaced when Wes pressed the neural interface into his temple more roughly than usual. "Try to remember that you wanted this."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Kurt said.

"Yes, well--" Wes made his way toward the computer console while Kurt lowered the visor to his face. The rest of his words followed Kurt down into the game. "If you come back up pissed, you're not allowed to say I didn't warn you."

*

To say that Kurt went down the swooping staircase with some apprehension as to what he'd be facing was a grand understatement. Non-player characters swept around him as he approached the bottom stair, but Blaine was suspiciously absent from their number. It took some searching to find him, but thankfully, most every character Kurt met in the halls was interactive and could point him in the right direction. He should have just guessed. Blaine was standing in the senior commons with a handful of Warblers and when Kurt slipped into the back of the room, Blaine's voice was growing louder in an effort to be heard.

"Order!" shouted the Warbler Council president from the head of the room. He had a vague resemblance to Wes, and Kurt saw Blaine look at him then, just as sharply, look away. "Order!" He rapped his gavel a few times until everyone in the room fell silent. "Blaine Warbler, while your suggestion for a change in wardrobe is admirable for its ambition, we haven't undergone a change of such significance since 20XX, when the decision to exchange our normal ties for clip-ons was the only thing that saved our team from being dragged off stage by the audience."

"I understand completely," said Blaine, sounding exasperated, "but it's my opinion that it's our reluctance to change and grow that's given us so much trouble in our previous performances. We've become privileged porcelain birds!" He turned as he spoke, trying to look each of the Warblers in the eye. When he caught sight of Kurt, he seemed to visibly take strength from it. "We might be members of a very prestigious school, but we're still teenagers. This should be a time of exploration and experimentation." He paused -- dramatically, Kurt thought, and possibly for effect -- before continuing in a softer voice. "Don't any of you want to get _out there_?"

Done speaking, Blaine looked out the window while the Warblers' voices swelled around him in debate. Because much of the program's memory was dedicated to the detail of the school itself, there was only a limited environment beyond Dalton's walls -- nothing more than the grass and stone of a courtyard and then a plain landscape beyond the academy's fencing. For Kurt, the view out of the window never changed, but Blaine's gaze was distant, heavy. Kurt couldn't help but wonder if Blaine saw something different now that he had all this extra characterization layered under his skin.

When it was just the two of them again -- with the Warblers disbanded as soon as Kurt had stepped in to sway the final decision, as was the nature of game play -- Blaine was at Kurt's elbow in an instant, fingers cautiously touching at the crook of his arm as he said, "Please tell me that you have another story for me."

Kurt smiled pleasantly. "You're sure acting funny today, Blaine. You've never asked for one before."

Blaine nodded. "I know. I know. It's just that today has been sort of awful."

This was new too. In all of his interactions with Kurt, Blaine had always been entirely polite -- perfect from head to toe, so incredibly _Stepford Wife_ in his interaction while still maintaining a concerned and sympathetic face. Blaine didn't have bad days or better days. He only sensed the passage of time in terms of changing numbers, so that he confessed to feeling something was startling.

"Well you were getting into an argument with the Warbler Council just now," Kurt said. "You're not normally so rebellious."

There was a clamour from the hall outside the senior common room and Blaine pulled an irritated expression before getting up to close the doors against the noise. He hovered there, leaning his head against the polished hardwood and looking so utterly worn, suddenly. Kurt wondered if this was another of the consequences of unlocking his character -- if every one of their meetings after this would show him a Blaine that was sweet but tired, dependent and strong, and young and old, all at the same time.

"Today is different," Blaine said, coming back to Kurt's side for a moment before sinking to their usual couch. He put his hand on the leather by his leg and left it there as an invitation for Kurt to join him. When Kurt did finally, Blaine leaned into him a bit -- not enough to actually touch, but enough to be in Kurt's space -- and said, "Please, tell me a story."

So Kurt told him about high school -- about Karofsky and his bullying and how Kurt had never truly figured out why he was being picked on worse than the others, about New Directions and how being with them was the source of the best and worst days of his childhood, and about the quiet truths he hadn't told anyone before: that he'd never felt more alone than he had in Lima, Ohio and that he would always wish he'd done something to change things in that crazy, backwater town. Blaine soaked in his words, savoring them with a fresh relish, and there were little responses to the story that made Kurt reevaluate Blaine as a whole -- a part of his lips to something shocking, the grim thinning of his mouth in resigned understanding, and the softening of his eyes when Kurt confessed his deepest his regrets. Blaine wasn't expressing any other feeling that he hadn't done before with words, but seeing them skitter across his features was like witnessing a greater depth of character unfurl before him like a flower.

When his story was over and Blaine didn't immediately make an appropriate comment like he had in the past, Kurt cupped his jaw and tilted his face upward. "Blaine," he said. "You look..."

He gaped, at a loss at how to describe the way Blaine seemed so shaken. Kurt felt his heart go out to the boy in front of him. What kind of history did Wes have for Blaine that it could add such a heartbreaking quality to him? Kurt wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, but maybe it was only fair to ask if Blaine wanted to share.

"You look like you might have a story of your own worth sharing," Kurt said, trying to keep it as light as possible but not sure he'd managed. He dropped his hand to cover Blaine's. "I'll listen. If you want me to."

Blaine smiled wanly. "It's maybe nothing." He glanced toward the closed doors that led to the hallway and then down to the space between their knees. He seemed _nervous_ when he turned his hand over underneath Kurt's and laced their fingertips together. "Have you ever noticed that the people at Dalton aren't... They aren't like us. They don't do anything on their own. They don't even talk sometimes without someone speaking first and when you're not here..." He trailed off for a moment, but then he took a deep breath and confessed the rest in a rush. "When you're not here, it feels like I'm the only one that's really here."

Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand. "It sounds like you're lonely."

"Lonely," Blaine echoed, tasting the word. "Lonely. Yes, I'm -- I'm _lonely_ when you're not here."

*

Kurt rose from the game with a jolt, lurching off the side of the reclined chair with a gasp and ignoring how his head ached from where he'd struck the visor. Wes was at his side in an instant, holding him up and feeling for his pulse. Dazedly, Kurt picked at the monitors across his forehead until the last one had dropped to the floor along with the neural interface. When Wes got a hand under his elbow, Kurt gripped Wes' shoulder hard, allowing himself to be hefted to his feet and guided to one of the chairs.

"I'm fine," he said to Wes, who was still counting his heartbeats with an alarmed crease between his brows. "I'm fine, really. I promise. It was just --" He laughed, covering his eyes with one hand. "Oh my god, Wes. Blaine is _amazing_. You should see him. He's so different than before -- like he's got this personality to him now. He's so beautiful." Kurt grabbed Wes' hand and held it in both of his. "Wes, you've created someone so beautiful."

"I know," said Wes soothingly.

Kurt started to push himself out of the chair. "I want to go back in."

Wes, shocked, shoved Kurt right back into his seat. "What are you saying? You only just got out."

"Doesn't matter," Kurt said, shivering in the usual aftermath of coming back to reality. "Give me fifteen minutes, Wes. Let me just -- something to eat, the restroom. I won't be long."

"We still have to talk about what just happened," Wes said, huffing when Kurt shoved his way to his feet anyway and stumbled toward his backpack to dig out a granola bar. "What happened with Blaine, Kurt? You still haven't told me."

Kurt laughed again as he pulled apart his snack's wrapper and tossed it into the trash. "It's fantastic! You don't know what it's like. He's the same guy -- still wonderful and so charming -- but there's so much more to him now. There are so many things about him that I don't know --" and wasn't that thought alone incredible? "I mean, you can't understand because you're the one that gave him all that information."

"Kurt--"

"I guess that means I could just ask you what his story is," Kurt continued, gestures going a bit wild with his enthusiasm, "but that doesn't seem fair, does it? I should find out for myself. So I'm going to -- right now." He broke off a piece of his granola bar and popped it into his mouth. "Or as soon as I'm done eating." He gobbled down the rest of it as he rummaged through his bag for another. Wes was quiet now, but Kurt couldn't bring himself to care when his mind was racing with possibilities -- imagined scenarios, imagined satisfaction of knowing someone else so thoroughly. "Plus, I think he's started realizing that he's not like the other characters in Dalton--"

Just as he'd known it would, that made Wes' attention snap toward him. "What?" he asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that he knows that he's different," Kurt said, shrugging. "Blaine looks at me and he looks at the Warblers and comparing the two, he's decided that he's more like me. Fascinating, isn't it? And this was just within a few hours of being unlocked! What if that feeling only becomes stronger over time? What happens if you give him a few days -- a week -- a month? He'd be as real as you or me."

Wes shook his head. "That way lies madness." When Kurt moved toward the reclined chair, dusting his hands of granola crumbs, Wes grabbed him by the wrist. "Wait a second, Kurt. Think about what you're suggesting. Blaine is a computer program -- a good one, a _very_ good one, if I may say so -- but that's all he's ever going to be."

It was the way that he said it that put Kurt on the defensive. He'd never heard Wes putting limits on himself. For Wes, there was always more to strive for, another step to take toward perfection. To hear him sound so quietly resigned was horrible and a part of him -- one that he wasn't listening to at the moment -- wondered: was the goal that Wes set for himself so massive that even a system as complex and impressive as Blaine would never be able to measure up?

"Well, not with that attitude!" Kurt said, instead of asking why Wes seemed so hopeless. "He's _lonely_ down there. He feels things. Sadness, frustration, longing -- I saw them all. Tell me: do you really think that it'd be impossible for a computer program like Blaine to ever grow beyond its purpose?"

When Wes stayed willfully silent, Kurt pressed: "It's possible. I know it is."

Wes seemed torn. His fingers tightened around Kurt's wrist briefly and then let go. "Kurt, you're a good guy," he said. The matter-of-fact tone of Wes' voice made Kurt stiffen, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from how the other man's face was tight with worry. "You work hard and you're always on time. You’ve got issues, though. I never hear you talking about friends or family. You're always on about the games and while that might be fine for the other games that you test out, Dalton is different."

Kurt scoffed. "Of course, it's different. It's virtual reality. It's a lot more sophisticated than any other game wanting out on the market and--"

"Yes," Wes cut in gravely. "Dalton is different because it's _virtual reality_. Think about that for a moment, Kurt." He reached out and squeezed Kurt's shoulder. "I want you to remember this because it's very important: Dalton is not real. _Blaine_ is not real." Kurt closed his eyes and turned away from Wes' words. "No matter how human he seems," Wes said, "he will only ever be a product of a computer program."

Kurt wasn't entirely sure why those words pained him so much -- only that they did. They struck at his bones, hardening his spirit with fury until he could grit his teeth against Wes' sympathetic touch. Wes' advice was something that Kurt had told himself for so long, but then Blaine had looked to him with such wonder, marveling at being given the name for the feeling he'd felt -- the gut-wrenching ache of standing in a world full of people and wanting so badly to connect with them while knowing that the sentiment would never be returned. Blaine might only exist because a series of numbers and symbols allowed him to, but Kurt couldn't just leave him to that feeling. He knew loneliness inside and out and even though it had been Blaine's first emotion, Kurt wasn't going to let it be his last.

Slowly, he opened his eyes again. The reclined chair beckoned to him from across the room. He forced himself to look away.

"You're right," he said. Wes made a soft noise, relieved enough to back off a little. That was enough for Kurt to know that he would never be able to let Wes know what he was thinking now. "No. Yes, I mean. Of course, you're right. I didn't -- I don't know what I was thinking." He laughed as he turned toward Wes, but it felt hollow. "It was just that..." He shrugged sort of helplessly. "You should be proud, I guess. You've created an _amazing_ facsimile of real life."

Wes reached toward Kurt again, but Kurt slipped away toward his bag, dropping the second granola bar he'd found back into one of the smaller pockets. "Kurt," he said, "I didn't mean to offend you."

"You haven't offended me," Kurt said. "I promise." He zipped up his backpack with a couple sharp tugs and slung it over his shoulder as he straightened up. "Look, maybe I've just got to get my head on straight. Go do some real world stuff before I go back in. See my friends, my family."

Wes' expression didn't stop looking grim, but he was nodding while Kurt headed toward the exit. "See you next week, then?"

Kurt smiled. He wasn't sure if he'd ever worn a smile that felt so false. "Next week," he promised. "I'll be here.”

*

Kurt left the research facility with the grand desire to rescue Blaine from the trappings of his virtual environment. He got all the way to his car with those thoughts swirling in his head like a hurricane and got halfway home before he realized how stupid the idea of saving Blaine was. What was he going to do -- put him on a flash drive? A part of him was still furious at how insistent Wes had been about dismissing Blaine, but that too had faded away by the time Kurt was unlocking the door to his apartment.

His apartment was a dinky efficiency a few blocks from campus. He had the money to afford better, thanks to his dad and his job, but was saving up for the trip to Europe he'd been promising himself ever since high school. He didn't need a lot of room anyway and had plenty of ingenuity to do a lot with very little. Still, home was quiet when he shut the door behind him -- quiet and empty.

Perfect, he told himself, for getting some work done. The problem -- he found an hour and three cups of tasteless coffee later -- was that there was so very little work to actually do. He was taking just enough hours to be a full time student while still keeping most mornings free so that Wes could call him in if need be. He hadn't yet been summoned more than twice a week and the rest of that free time was spent studying and doing homework, which further meant that at times like this -- when he was home instead of at work -- there was little more to do other than think.

The problem was that all Kurt could think about was Blaine -- Blaine and his smiles, Blaine and his friendly touches, Blaine and the innocent way he'd stumbled upon his own loneliness. He'd been working with Blaine for what was close to six months now. He'd seen him progress from a character that was flat and clinically expressive into a person Kurt would half-expect to find walking on the streets. It seemed such a shame that he was doomed to live forever in a school that would never change, with an appearance that would never age. There wasn't much he could do about that, Kurt mused. Even if he stole the coding that made up Blaine's program and put him on a system that could handle him, it would just be exchanging one fake environment for another.

He tried to stop thinking about it. He called in an order of pad thai from a place near the medical district of town and biked to and from the restaurant to retrieve it. He ate on the patio with a book open on one knee. He wasn't even reading it. He only had it out there to look at while he was thinking so that he wouldn't look like that guy that sat in front of the television with take out. It was bad enough that he was eating take out at all. To do it while watching Judge Judy was to reach for another level of pathetic.

There was no television in the Dalton Program. There were portals to bonus game play arenas -- a shopping mall, a stadium, a coffee shop called the Lima Bean, and the grounds of a rival school called McKinley -- but there was absolutely no television. The school had a library and a computer lab, though neither were usually seen. What did Blaine do when there wasn't a player in the game with him? Kurt smiled to himself as he thought of Blaine wrangling the Warblers into even more impromptu performances than usual -- if only to stave off sheer boredom -- but sobered up quickly when he realized that the truth probably lay more toward Blaine doing nothing at all. What point would there be in wasting time? Blaine had no need to eat or sleep or relax. Any purpose he had was that given to him by the player.

What else could Blaine do besides wait?

That thought stayed with him through the rest of the afternoon -- until he'd finally forced his attention to his novel until the sticky summer sun had dipped far enough below the rooftops that reading was impossible. It hovered in the back of his brain while he heated up the remainder of the pad thai for dinner and talked to his dad over the phone. When he hung up, Kurt was thinking about what kind of parentage could have created a guy like Blaine and that... that was just ridiculous. Definitely the last straw.

He called Mercedes next. "Hey," he said when she answered, sounding hurried. "Sorry to bother you, but I need to invoke the Best Friend Act."

She only laughed. "Oh, honey. Pull my arm a little harder, would you?"

He left the pad thai in the microwave. He threw on some clothes that suited a night on the town and when Mercedes swooped to pick him up from the curb in her biggest guilty pleasure -- a hot, little convertible in fire engine red -- he slumped into the passenger seat gratefully. She cast him a worried look before taking off toward downtown.

"You look rough," she said. "Is it a boy?"

Kurt huffed. "You could say that." He wished that he could explain everything to her in the fullest, but the truth was that he wasn't sure he understood it either. "I'd rather not talk about it," he said instead. "Distract me, please."

Mercedes did her best. She buttered him up with food and wine over a real dinner with slices of sweet biscotti instead of french bread and a steak so tender and juicy that it didn't even need the mushroom sauce to be utterly delicious. Mercedes filled up the quiet between them with news on her life in the last few weeks they hadn't seen each other -- her church, the small theatre roles she'd landed, how being busy with work had put her and Sam on the rocks, but they were working things out. Kurt responded with all the enthusiasm and concern that he knew was required of him. It wasn't that he was without interest; it was just that half his mind was occupied with how great the food was and how Dalton never seemed to have the taste of coffee right.

He was pushing the prongs of his fork through the trace remainders of his side of baby carrots when Mercedes asked him about his work. "Good!" he said with what was probably too much energy if her incredulous look was anything to go by. "It's fine. Wes is a great boss. I go in, play video games for four hours, and that's it. What's not to like?"

Mercedes' brows rose. "I'm sure I don't know," she said. "You wanted me to distract you from something, but you and I both know that if you don't talk about it -- don't face what's wrong -- you'll just sulk over it." She reached to cover one of his hands with her own. "What's going on, Kurt?"

"Well, there's this guy," Kurt said, sagging forward with the weight of the story he was about to hand over. "His name's Blaine."

"Coworker?" Mercedes guessed.

Kurt nodded. "Sort of." Mercedes pulled a face. Kurt waved it off. "We're not like that. Anyway, Blaine's really nice. Honesty is inherent to his nature. I can tell him anything and he doesn't judge me."

"Everyone judges us, Kurt," Mercedes said. "It's part of being human."

"Blaine's different." Kurt couldn't bring himself to tell her that the difference might be due to Blaine not being human at all. "He's unlike anyone I've ever met. It's just--" He glanced down, searching for guts to spit out everything he felt when he was with Blaine. "Have you ever looked at someone and known that they were capable of so much more than they were doing?"

When he looked up, Mercedes was regarding him with a soft expression.

"He's smart and he's curious and the way he looks at the world is so optimistic," Kurt said. "I've talked to Wes about him, but he's basically told me that I'm overstepping. The expansion of Blaine's job description is none of my business, which is -- yeah -- within his rights, I guess." Mercedes nodded, sipping at her drink, while Kurt chewed at his lower lip in consideration. "He's happy where he is, in a way, but that's because he doesn't know any better. He has no idea how trapped he is and every time I look at him, I get so frustrated. How do you tell someone that you think that they're going to waste?"

Mercedes' mouth was thinned in uncertainty. She took a moment to push their plates to the side and regathered his hands in the center of the table. "Let me tell you something. You and I have been friends a long time. I love you. You know I do, _but_ \--" her fingers tightened incrementally around his, "-- you say that he's happy where he is. Can you say that showing him his potential will make him happier?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't know," he confessed. "The truth is, after today, I'm not all that sure I know him as well as I think I do."

"What do you mean?"

He laughed a little as the memory flitted to the forefront of his mind. "He told me that he was lonely." Mercedes made a small noise and Kurt shrugged. "I want him to be less lonely."

"Honey." Mercedes ducked her head a little to catch his gaze. "Have you considered that what Blaine needs to feel less lonely isn't a great big life of meeting his best potential? Maybe all he needs is a friend or someone who can understand him."

Smiling thinly, Kurt said, "I don't want him to wake up one day and regret everything he's missed."

Mercedes withdrew her hands to reach for her purse and accepted the check from their waiter. "You know," she said as she pulled out her wallet, "if I were you, I'd be wondering if it weren't me waking up with the regrets already, instead of Blaine."

Kurt raised a brow in her direction. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her eyes went comically wide as she tucked some cash behind the receipts. "Nothing, really. It's just not the first time I've had a conversation about a guy with the potential to do so much more with his life. Honestly, though. As long as you’re happy, honey, I'm happy." She patted the back of his hand and tucked her purse under her arm. "Now, how about that distraction?"

*

Mercedes was good on her word. Distraction meant that she helped him into his apartment while he stumbled alongside her toward the sofa. As soon as she was sure that he was okay -- drunk but not terribly so -- she kissed him on the forehead and told him to call her tomorrow and to not forget to lock the door before slipping away. By the time the door had clicked shut behind her, Kurt was already feeling more sober, more awake, as he stared up at the cracked ceiling of his apartment.

Twenty-two years old and what was he doing? When he was Blaine's age, he'd expected his life to have taken off by now. Childish enthusiasm and optimism had given him dreams of world tours and working his way through massively competitive internships in New York or France or Milan. Instead, he was doing language studies while he lost opportunities to better, more ruthless rivals. He was filling up his time as a test subject, playing video games he wasn't even particularly good at. He'd kind of expected to have the beginnings of a relationship by now at least. In high school, that had been impossible with the rampant homophobia surrounding him. He'd told himself that college would be different -- _better._ College was definitely different and better than high school, but there was a host of things he'd thought he'd achieve by now.

Tonight had been as much about himself as it had been about Blaine. Blaine was so _young_. He was so eager to learn and live and it pained Kurt to see so much of himself in what had started off as a simple program and know that he was essentially held in stasis at that point -- held forever at the stage of infinite potential with no hope of actually achieving anything. On top of that, Kurt was even more pitiable for the fact that he'd had his chances and let them pass him by. At least Blaine could say that he was just a computer program whose environment limited his interactions. The only real people that Blaine had were those that beta tested Dalton with Wes.

So far that had only consisted of Kurt.

Sitting up, Kurt dug through his bag until he could find the ID badge he used to get into Wes' lab. "Be a friend, hm?" he mused aloud. "I can do that."

*

After having worked with Wes for so long, Kurt had a pretty good idea of his schedule. Wes worked through the afternoon with Rachel Berry, who was a rather brilliant vocalist that helped with speech recognition programs and creating unique vocal patterns for Wes to use. As soon as they were done working, Wes dragged his laptop and paperwork home with him, only to resurface promptly at eight the following morning, ready to do some serious reprogramming on Dalton. In the twelve hours that Wes was gone, his lab was left empty and locked to everyone who didn't have an access card. Luckily, the people that did have access included Wes, Rachel, a handful of computer technicians, and Kurt. Even more luckily, the facility that housed Wes' research was open twenty-four hours a day for the sake of projects that had overseas partners, so when Kurt strolled up at half past midnight, flashing his access card at the guard, he was waved in without comment.

Wes' lab was dark when Kurt got to it. The feel was so different from the day -- too quiet, haunted by the computer console that lit the room with a pale blue light. The door closed behind him with a gentle _snick_ as he moved deeper into the lab, setting down the bag he'd brought with him to at least look like he was here on business. Wes' usual mess was absent from the desk -- tucked away into filing cabinets or taken home with Wes, probably -- and though the computer was on and humming with activity, the system was locked. Frustrated already, Kurt opened up drawers, hoping that Wes might be the the type to keep his passwords listed on post-it notes, but to no avail. All he found was a bunch of the blank forms that Wes used for his project with Rachel. They had the kind of questions that Kurt expected from a doctor's physical, not Wes. They covered things like temperature, reflexes, and responsiveness of the senses, but as far as Kurt knew, Wes had never been a traditional doctor.

"Weird," he muttered, straighting out the stack of papers and sliding them back into the drawer. "Not going to get me a password though."

He looked over at his usual chair. Next to it were the two boxes that contained the strips for the neural interfaces and the brainwave monitors and above it, the visor was set in the offline position. Peering closely, however, Kurt noticed that the visor's screen was softly lit by white noise. Thinking that he might be imagining it, he scooted toward the chair to get a closer look and laughed a bit when he recognized the Dalton Program's source code skittering across the screen. He didn't dare question why it was on still. Perhaps, it was just because Wes had simply forgot after the rather panicked way in which Kurt had last exited the game, but for all he knew, Wes always left it running when Kurt wasn't due to come in. Either way, he supposed, it didn't matter.

This was an opportunity he'd only hoped to find. He wasn't about to let it slip past him.

With a smile, Kurt set himself up with a series of monitors and the neural interface before hopping onto the reclined chair and pulling the visor down to his face.

It was time to play for real.

*

Like the real world, Dalton was shadowed in darkness and suspiciously devoid of activity. Kurt felt a weird sort of urgency, descending the stairs two at a time and looking around for face, movements -- anything to indicate which direction he could start in. Finding nothing, he headed toward the senior common room, figuring it to be a good place to begin, and was happily rewarded by Blaine at one of the small tables by the far wall. When Blaine straightened in surprise, having heard Kurt's entrance, he looked a bit less miserable than Kurt had last left him.

"Kurt!" he said, flipping the book he'd been reading so that its pages faced the table. He rose to greet Kurt with a warm embrace. "What are you doing here? You're not due for--" His head tipped to the side, "--another six days."

"Visiting." Kurt smiled reassuringly, hoping that would be enough to keep Blaine's curiosity at bay. "I wanted to see what you were doing."

Blaine returned the smile easily, turning back toward his table. He tugged Kurt along after him by the hand. "I found this book last night," he was saying. "It's this neat biography -- kind of sad because his relationship with his parents isn't that great, but he's sweet. I kind of hope he stays that way, but that wouldn't make for a great book, would it? I'm almost done with it, actually, if you're interested in reading it too."

Kurt accepted the book when Blaine picked it up off the table and handed it to him. "You got this last night?" Blaine nodded while Kurt flipped through its pages. There was no text in it -- just coding reflecting in the light -- and Kurt wondered if Wes unlocked characters by just handing them their life's story in the form of a book. "It doesn't seem all that long for a biography."

"Wouldn't know," said Blaine, gesturing to their usual leather couch so that they could sit next to each other. "It's my first time reading one."

"But you like it?" Kurt asked and Blaine nodded enthusiastically. "Why don't you tell me about the person it's about?"

Blaine faltered for a moment. "It's hard to say. He grew up pretty normal. Older brother. Younger sister. Definitely a middle child syndrome waiting to happen." He laughed, but his gaze was distant, looking toward the chessboard across the room instead of at Kurt. "He had a very promising childhood with tutoring in piano and violin -- that kind of thing -- and lots of friends. His parents thought he might become a lawyer when he got older, but he ended up liking instruments more. He even started up a band with some friends of his in the neighborhood!"

"Impressive," Kurt said and Blaine's attention swiveled back toward him. His face seemed softer with memory. "What did he play?"

"Keyboard." Blaine smiled wistfully. "He would have done the guitar too, but he already knew how to play the piano and Wes only had a guitar."

Kurt tensed a bit at the mention of Wes' name and Blaine cast him a quizzical look. "Nothing. I just have a friend named Wes too. It's a little odd."

"Yeah?" Blaine perked up. "They can't be the same person. You're what --" He looked Kurt up and down. "Can't be older than me. Sixteen? Seventeen?"

Splaying his fingers out and over his knee, Kurt had to remind himself that the body Blaine saw was one that would suit Dalton -- a younger version of himself, complete with school uniform and pristine hair. "You saying that I can't have friends that are older than me?"

Blaine, at least, looked a bit sheepish. "Well, of course not, but it'd be weird, wouldn't it?" He held the biography up and shook it. "The Wes in here--" Blaine tilted his head again, "--he'd have to be around thirty by now. He can't be your friend."

Kurt tried to keep a calm face, but even as he asked Blaine to tell him more about the book, his mind was trying to remember exactly how old Wes was. Was he thirty or did he just act like it? Kurt couldn't remember, but in the meantime, Blaine plunged onward.

He told Kurt about liking old, classic cars and the top billboard artists throughout junior high. He talked about speaking different languages, but only words that he'd learned through listening to the music of different cultures. There were trips to big cities and a deep-seated love of horror movies. Through it all, Blaine said, friendships were what stayed strong because even when the idea of a band waned with their interest and even when they moved onto high school, the core friendships remained. Then there came the gradual, dawning realization of his sexuality alongside a quiet, burgeoning affection that ran deeper than friendship.

"That's where I'm at now, though," Blaine said. "He hasn't come out, but I think he will soon. His friends are good to him, even if the rest of the high school isn't." He smoothed his hand out over the biography's cover. "They probably sense that he's different, you know? The same way that I can look at the Warblers and any other student here and know that they're different from you and me."

"Hm, sounds like you're pretty invested in this book," Kurt commented.

"Yeah." Blaine nodded, turning the biography over and over in his hands and testing the lightness of its weight. "I've been searching for something to explain the way I feel about things. You taught me loneliness earlier, but that's one of the big ones. There's this whole spectrum that can't be explained in simple, single words like happiness or worry or anger or--" here, his eyes flicked up from the book to meet Kurt's, "-- _love._ " He looked away just as quickly. "But it's like I can really connect with this story. As I read it, it's like I'm there, experiencing it all through his eyes -- everything he thinks and everything he says. Everything he feels."

Blaine's gaze rose again, more certainly this time -- shameless -- and a smile worked it's way up around his mouth. Kurt could see that Blaine had changed again, even from this morning. It was subtler, but it ran deeper than his skin. Feeling bold with his curiosity, Kurt reached for Blaine's hand. He ran his thumbs over the bone and the tendon and then turned his hand over so that he could press those same thumbs into the soft skin of his palm. His touch was hard and Blaine's skin flushed red underneath it, but Blaine didn't say anything to stop him. He set aside the biography and leaned in closer, but he didn't try to stop Kurt at all.

His only question was this: "What are you looking for?"

Kurt bent Blaine's hand back to expose the fragile skin of his wrist. "Proof that this is real," he said.

Blaine's lips parted. He leaned in a fraction more. "Did you find any?"

"Yes. More than I needed," Kurt said, quite unable to tear his eyes away from where Blaine's skin stretched thinly over narrow tendons and faint blue veins. There wasn't even a hint of the programming code simmering under the surface and when he fitted his fingers in the hollow under Blaine's thumb, there was a steady, heavy pulse. When he managed to look up at last, Blaine's eyes were curving with his smile. "What?"

"Kurt, you are completely unlike any person I've ever met," he said.

Kurt chuckled, letting his hold on Blaine loosen, so he was just holding on for the sake of it with his fingertips hidden under the blazer's cuff. "I'm the only person you've ever met."

"Ah! So I was right," Blaine exclaimed, just as Kurt was realizing his slip.

"Blaine--"

"No, it's fine," he said with a relieved exhale. "It's something I've been thinking for a while. That this place seems so unreal. It's so weird that I never noticed it before, don't you think?" Blaine laughed, strangely delighted that he was telling Kurt this. "I don't know how many times I saw you leave before I started wondering how it was possible. I always thought, _oh, he's just gone home_ , but for the longest time, I didn't look for a door. Sometimes I would wake up knowing that you were already here and I would open my eyes and find myself at the bottom of the staircase already."

In the space of a breath, Blaine scooted so close that they were knee-to-knee and his eyes were wide, his back straight but slowly leaning into Kurt's space again as he said in an awed hush, "Dalton is like a dream. A beautiful, wonderful dream, where I'm alone in a crowd of nobodies and you've come to keep me company."

Blaine's hand moved to cover Kurt's knee and then moved a smidge higher to splay like a web over Kurt's thigh. The other came up to Kurt's jaw, touching lightly at the underside, and Kurt's breath hitched as he tilted his head a little, fully prepared to welcome what he knew was coming. Their lips met briefly and Blaine withdrew only long enough to murmur, "Please, don't wake me up," before crashing forward again. Blaine kissed inelegantly, pressing their mouths together with more pressure than was entirely pleasant, and when Kurt opened up beneath him, he followed suit with a soft sound, eagerly tasting Kurt's top lip first then his bottom lip. He shifted toward Kurt by another inch and stroked one heavy line up Kurt's thigh while Kurt cupped the side of his face with his free hand.

Kurt smoothed his thumb over Blaine's cheekbone, surprised at his own willingness to go along with this. He began to feel giddy as the kiss went on, as Blaine settled into a movement that was softer than his earlier hunger. He'd thought so before -- that this place made him feel like a teenager as much as it made him look like one -- but the truth was that Blaine stripped him of his years far more effectively than Dalton did. Kurt knew how to kiss. He knew how to kiss _really well_ , but fear made him hesitate to pull out all the stops. Blaine was only sixteen, even if it was all in his head, and Kurt didn't want to be single-handedly responsible for his corruption with just a few kisses.

When they parted, Blaine was smiling beatifically. Joy stole across his features like sunlight and his lashes fluttered against his cheeks as a blush highlighted the curve of his bone structure. "Wow," he said. His fingers tightened over the expanse of Kurt's thigh. "That was--"

"Yeah," Kurt agreed and couldn't help sitting up straighter or running his the back of his fingertips along Blaine's jaw to draw him in once more.

He got the hard press of Blaine's mouth and Blaine's hair curling around his fingers and the sound of their desperate breaths synchronizing--

Then a jolt -- a jerk and shock like being plunged into arctic water -- and there was only the visor with its scrolling coding flickering before his eyes like a heartbeat before even that was yanked away. Wes loomed in its place.

"What the hell are you doing?" Wes said, already reaching up to pluck the monitors from Kurt's forehead. When Kurt started shivering, so hard that his teeth chattered, he bent to dig under the chair for an emergency blanket and threw it over him, tucking it under his arms and legs with the matter-of-fact handling of a nurse twice his age. "It's nearly three in the morning and you know you're not supposed to go in without supervision. It's for a reason." He frowned very deeply at Kurt. "How were you planning on getting yourself back out, idiot?"

"Wasn't," Kurt said. His voice was shaking too. Wes' frown only grew more severe. "Wasn't planning on it."

As Wes' face darkened into pure fury, Kurt clung to the blanket with trembling fingers and grit his teeth against what had to be the worst resurfacing he'd had to date. The lab around him was coolly lit by only half its usual fluorescents. The lightning was soft, calm, but nothing at all like the warmth of Dalton's lights. He couldn't even think of what kind of lighting the school had other than a few lamps, but Dalton was so different from this lab for so many reasons -- not the least of which was Blaine himself. Carefully, Kurt sucked his lower lip between his teeth, half-hoping that he would feel the ache of bruising kisses or taste the nervous sweat Blaine had left behind. Nothing; his lips tasted perfectly normal. Unexpectedly, Kurt's body gave another hard shiver.

As angry as Wes was, Kurt had expected him to start shouting at any moment. Instead, he was layering another emergency blanket over him and rubbing at his chest before telling Kurt to do it himself and moving down to rub at Kurt's legs. "You're a complete and total idiot," Wes said. "Do you think I take my laptop home with me to write up reports? Fuck you, Kurt. Imagine my surprise when I _happen_ to get woken up by a wrong number and _happen_ to check on Blaine's activity, which should be low at this hour but had instead spiked higher than ever because you _happened_ to drop in."

Wes fell silent for a grim few seconds. His hands had stilled on Kurt's calves, which were still shaking. "You can't do this again."

"I'll be fine," Kurt said. The shivering had almost reached normal levels after all. Another few minutes would be all he needed. "It's all in my head anyway, right? I'm not actually cold."

"I don't mean this," Wes said, gesturing broadly at Kurt's body. "Although yes, now that you bring it up, it is a factor. I simply can't have you sneaking in to visit Blaine whenever you want to, no matter what your reasons are. Did our conversation this morning tell you nothing?" With a huff, he brought out a penlight and started flashing it in Kurt's eyes. "You're lucky that you're fine, but I'm not stupid enough to think that you're doing this for the sake of the project." He paused, sniffing. "Jesus, Kurt, have you been drinking?"

Kurt squeezed his eyes shut as Wes tucked the penlight away and untucked a hand from under the blanket to rub them. "I went out," he said. "It was only a few shots. I had dinner."

"Stupid," Wes muttered, withdrawing to his desk to gather Kurt's bag and his ID badge. The bag he brought back to the chair, but Kurt's badge went into Wes' pocket. "I can't believe I hired someone so stupid."

"Hey, I thought psychiatrists were supposed to be nice," Kurt said, pushing himself upright and shoving the blanket down to his waist. The shivering was almost completely gone now.

"You aren't a patient!" Wes snapped. "You're an employee and you've risked yourself and this project because you got drunk and wanted to see Blaine, whom appears to be your _only friend_. Do you even realize how big of a liability you've become?"

"Oh, come on, Wes--"

"Dalton isn't one of your normal games, Kurt," he said, shoving Kurt's bag into his arms and then whirling toward his desk again, still lecturing. "You can't just fuck around with it and accidentally kill a bad guy or find a stash of plasma charges. Blaine learns, okay? He grows and changes, and with every person he meets, he will grow and change and he will never be the same as he was before. And now, of course, I can't even account for what you've done tonight because your drunk ass decided--"

Kurt came clean with a hush: "He kissed me."

Cutting off his own tirade, Wes turned his ear to Kurt, listening with his hand swiping over his mouth and chin. "What did you say?"

"He kissed me." It was easier for Kurt to say say the second time. "He was reading a book when I showed up. It didn't have words in it. Just coding." Wes faced Kurt from behind the glow of the computer monitors. The dim lighting cast soft shadows that made it nearly impossible for Kurt to see his eyes. "I figured it was his back story. The one you told me you'd unlocked."

"Yes," Wes said.

"He wasn't finished yet," Kurt went on. "He'd only gotten so far as his first year of high school before I showed up, but he told me all about growing up, about his parents, about his friends." He kicked the blankets off of his legs and swiveled to let his feet hang toward the floor. His grip on the edge of the seat was so tight that his knuckles turned white. "He's not just a program anymore, Wes. It used to be that I could see it when I looked at him, but now all I see is flesh and blood, just like me."

"I told you," Wes sounded the tiniest bit hesitant. "He learns."

"He learned because of book you gave him," Kurt insisted. He let silence settle between them before he tentatively asked, "Wes, how old are you?" Not answering, Wes just stared him down. Kurt fumbled for an explanation even though he knew that pushing for a reply might be the wrong move. "It's just that he told me about a friend of his -- a guy with the same name as you. They grew up together and they seemed really close and I just thought... I thought that maybe the story you'd given Blaine was -- I don't know -- something more than what it seemed."

Wes' voice was strained when he replied. "Get out." Kurt startled. Wes gestured toward the door with an open palm. "Please."

Kurt stood quietly and slung his bag over his shoulder. "My badge?"

Wes had already turned his attention to his computer. "You won't be needing it anymore. You're fired."

It was the awful blow that Kurt hadn't thought would actually happen. His gaze cut to the chair at once, to the visor and the screen that still flickered with code. Blaine was still within Dalton's carefully contrived walls and Kurt couldn't even bring himself to think what their sudden separation had been like for Blaine. It was bad enough on this end, knowing that the split had become more permanent.

Was it worse to be left behind, waiting?

*

**LOG DATA FOR [NAME REDACTED], WESLEY  
ALL INCLUSIVE; DATES: 20XX-05-15 - 20XX-06-04**

DATE: 20XX-05-15  
_It's been six days. Blaine's historical patch has been completely integrated, but the glitches plaguing the Dalton have worsened. I suspect because Blaine expected Kurt instead of Dr. Berry, who has helpfully offered to take over the duties of beta tester. Establishing a connection between her and Blaine has proven only partially effective in restoring the program to its former state. Until this matter is resolved, I'm afraid that progress on Dalton is stalled. Thankfully, the Asimov Project with Dr. Berry continues without any problems._

DATE: 20XX-05-18  
_Dr. Berry informed me that Blaine has been asking after Kurt. We're both concerned about the ramifications of Blaine's continued preoccupation, but I stand firmly with the belief that withholding the truth of Kurt's absence will be better in the long run. With his full background unlocked, preventing Blaine's emotional connections from deepening is the best option we have._  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-19  
_Asimov is running smoothly. Dr. Berry's vocal recognition software is working splendidly. Soon, we'll be able to develop a unique vocal pattern for Asimov and his descendants from the combination of the samples volunteered to us. I'm trusting Dr Berry to create something that's actually appealing instead of the usual catastrophes that computerized voices usually are._  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-22  
_There was a voicemail in my inbox this morning from Kurt. He sounded drunk and miserable. I emailed him the numbers for local psychiatrists that aren't me. I don't have time for this._  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-25  
_Left Dalton running over the weekend again. I'm not sure why I keep forgetting. It's been at least a month since I've done a hard restart. Maybe that's all it'll take to resolve the glitches that keep happening._

_Strangest thing. Dalton's reboot time was twice as long as its previous average. Stranger still: Blaine's program failed to shut down at all._

_Spent the remainder of the day working on Asimov. Cerebellar mock up continues to elude us, although reflexes remain intact. Movement can be initiated with proper programming, but it's erratic and uncontrolled. Thank god that this is the only thing that's going wrong._  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-26  
_Dr. Berry says that Dalton has never looked so incomplete. Hallways blanked out with NPCs appearing and disappearing into nothing. Upon hearing this, I'd expected that Blaine would share similar gaps in his programming, but everything seems to be in order. I wonder if it has anything to do with the detail Dr. Berry gave me on Blaine still carrying his book with him._

 _Inspection of Dalton's coding has revealed large deletions. McKinley and the Lima Bean are completely absent and the portal subroutines that previously led to them, while intact, have had an 'exit' code inserted into them. The code doesn't actually affect the portals' functionality, but I'm not the only one who is able to change the layout of the game at will. I have to wonder if Blaine is trying to send some kind of message._  
Really thankful that I'd saved the perfected Dalton code on a separate server as a back up. Otherwise, I'd have to start over from scratch.  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-27  
_Berry reports now that the only playable areas of the game include the stairwell entrance, the senior commons, and the connecting hallway. Stability remains, but Berry also reports a severely decreased number of NPCs with which to interact. Her relationship with Blaine is civil, but still hasn't reached the depth that Kurt achieved in the same amount of time. (I'd call to ask how he did it, especially because the early versions of Blaine were so limited, but I don't think he'd be very receptive to the idea of helping someone else bond with Blaine, let alone Rachel Berry.)_

 _Getting Asimov to walk has been set aside in favor of getting a flesh construct spray painted onto the body. The gun is a mimic of the skin graft gun I saw on National Geographic. It's bulkier and less refined because we're working with a poly-collagen blend instead of stem cells, but it seems to work well. The final application went on smoothly. Complete installation will have to happen before Dr. Berry and I complete it. With everything that's happening with Dalton, however, I think that will have to happen sooner than I'm ready for._  
  
DATE: 20XX-05-28  
_Dr. Berry suggested that I see for myself what Dalton's become. I did._  
No amount of description could properly describe the nightmare it's turned into. This is not what I'd intended for Blaine at all. It's clear to me, though probably not to Dr. Berry, that the book is the only thing that's holding his program together. Though the reboot attempt earlier this month might have suggested that Blaine and Dalton are mutually exclusive programs, I know differently.  
Blaine seems to be, in a sense, trying to wake up. I guess I can understand that. I just wish he would listen to me when I tell him to stop. Because if he keeps it up for much longer, he's going to destroy himself.

DATE: 20XX-06-04  
_It's truly amazing how much work someone can do when something he cares about is at stake._  
Thankfully, this was something I had planned from the beginning. Blaine's natural personality was one of a caretaker, so the idea of putting his likeness into that of a carebot had never required much tweaking, though it wasn't supposed to be put into effect for several more months. In light of recent observations, however, this plan has had to be accelerated. In order to save Blaine's system, I've bypassed the replication process and hard grafted his coding to the carebot prototype Dr Berry and I have been working on.  
It will be a while before Blaine can do anything more than move his eyes. Speech -- like walking and fine motor control -- will take time to learn, but I anticipate that having the sophistication of his system in place of the simple programming Dr Berry and I have been using so far will speed things up a great deal.

 _This hasn't been the most ideal of ventures, if I'm honest. It's brought up a lot of issues I hadn't thought to look at in a long time -- both ethical and personal. When it comes down to it, though, I've carried out the goal I had in mind when I started down this path._  
The friend I grew up with wanted freedom. The freedom to live. The freedom to love.  
Blaine will never know this, but it has been an honor _to give that to him._

*

It had been four months. Kurt had honesty tried to stop counting in the beginning, but he let himself do that kind of thing now. It was a mourning process -- a way of taking little steps to get over what could have been. He'd moved. He'd finally gotten an internship in New York. He was busy now -- things to do, people to see, and endless, grueling hours that meant he came home at five am some nights and at eight pm on others. With the exception of keeping track of the passage of time and idle wishing into the night, Kurt could say that he'd done a little moving on. No more video games for him, but the language studies were finally coming in handy in a legitimate way. He could use them, for instance, when he was arguing with a photographer in French about the layout of his shoot while he was climbing up the last flight of stairs toward his apartment.

"No, no, no, you can't do this to me, Frederick," he was saying, "I need the pictures to show off the backing of the dress. That's the whole point of the style. You can't just take pictures of the front of the dress because the model's face is pretty. I'm sure her ass looks just as good."

Unfortunately for him, the internship in New York -- while it was just as competitive as he'd longed for and just as prized in the field -- came with a rather shitty paycheck for the rising housing market. Between transportation and bills and everything else, Kurt was running a little tight on cash. This meant that when he reached his floor, he peeked into the hallway to check for his landlord and saw the shadow of a man lurking outside his door, writing out a message on little notepad.

Frederick was still shouting back at him, French coming in loud and clear even though Kurt was holding the cell to his chest. Quickly, he hissed at him, "I'll call you back, asshole. You'd better be ready to do a reshoot," before ending the call and pocketing his phone.

Checking the hallway again, Kurt could see the man outside the door lit softly in the ceiling's flickering orange lamp. He had a head full of thick, dark hair and hands that were just a bit small for the size of his wrist. He was dressed well, too -- if simply -- in grey slacks and a blue sweater, which really wasn't enough for New York in the bitter chill of November. Not that he seemed to mind. Kurt was beginning to wonder if he was going to have to wait out whatever note was being written, but then the man tucked the notepad away and brought out a slender book from under his arm before settling against the frame of Kurt's door.

With a huff, Kurt broke from the shadows. "Well, if you're going to wait me out--"

Kurt ended up cutting himself off as he drew near. The man had turned his face toward Kurt as soon as he'd started speaking, and it-- there had been a second where the amber of his eyes had reminded him of something impossible. He thought that maybe it was just his imagination, but a look of utter joy had spread across the man's features, as if the sight and sound of Kurt were all he'd been waiting for.

"Sorry," the man said. "I didn't mean to startle you. It's just that, well--" He ducked his head, smiling, and Kurt felt something like recognition swell in his chest. "I've been looking for you forever."

*  
*  
*

THE END


End file.
